


Scenes from Down to Agincourt

by seperis, TKodami



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Egypt, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Art, Down to Agincourt, Fanwork of Fanwork, M/M, Rated M for dark themes and implied violence, all the tags of Agincourt apply to this work as well, artwork, hippos - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-23 23:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2560289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/pseuds/seperis, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKodami/pseuds/TKodami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fanart for the wildly addictive Endverse series, Down to Agincourt. It just keeps getting better and better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cas in the Church

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/gifts).



Cas In the Church ||| Inspired by a newly Fallen Castiel entering a church for some demonic beat-down in _Map of the World_ , Chapter 11

 

The church doors slam open behind them, shaking the church. [....]

Cas is skeletal, jacket huge over bony shoulders, t-shirt and jeans looking like they'll slough off like shed skin as he starts up the aisle in jagged strides, hands roughly bandaged and smeared with drying black and tacky red. Every bone is pushing brutally against livid, tissue-thin skin pulled impossibly tight, cheekbones like razors above hollowed-out cheeks, blue eyes sunk in rotting black holes like he's never slept, not once, not ever. The short brown hair is as brittle as straw around his face, bloodless lips bitten to unhealed wounds.

The wrongness is so profound it makes Dean's skin crawl just looking at him. Nothing living can look like that, two days rotting in the grave and still breathing, still dying without hope of death, still living, still having to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first piece "Cas In the Church," as you may recall happens in a church with shattered pews, people nailed to walls, and other various unpleasantness. When I drew this picture, I was synthesizing the calmer, earlier introduction to the church (when Dean arrives and it's intact), and Cas's dramatic entrance later in Chapter 11. I may revisit the church again and draw the properly horrifying scene inside.
> 
> This is the first in a series of drawings/paintings that I have planned for Down to Agincourt. The pieces I have planned will be evocative rather than spoilery, but I will warn for spoilers if I veer off into art that's based on major plotlines/reveals. Also, I will tag/bump up the rating if a certain questionable origin manuscript gets fanart. Longtime Agincourt readers: you have been warned.


	2. Journey to (the Great Swamp), Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean finds Cas' notebook and text for hippo porn, and congratulates himself on his restraint when he only defaces the manuscript once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People clamored for art from the quasi-Epic "Journey To---". This is part one of four of hippo-porn fanart. I'm having to work up to the drawing of suggestive hippos, so bear with me. This part is just pure enjoyment of the original hippo-porn text and Cas' trials as he translates.

  


  


  


  


 

"What are you reading, anyway?" Dean asks immediately, craning his neck to decipher the illegible title. Resigning himself, he picks it up and passes it to Dean, who flips it open, squinting at the pages with a dubious expression before turning it sideways. "Okay, I give up, what is it?"

"Evidence suggests it's the greater part of a very bad epic poem by a disappointed Athenian student who was refused study in the Library of Alexandria," Castiel tells him. "More specifically, a very grammatically questionable but extremely detailed account of a hero calling on the gods to help him strike down a soul devouring monster who preys on the young and helpless, which in this case is a symbolic representation of the head librarian at the time, Eratosthenes."

Dean looks back at the page, tilting his head in confusion. "But not in Greek."

"Depressingly, he attempted to write it in demotic Egyptian during a tour of the Nile, the quality of which explains why he wasn't accepted to study in the Library. From context, I assume this was a portion of a trip arranged by his family to console him for his failure as a scholar."

Dean cocks his head. "He didn't get into college so he went on a road trip and wrote a pre-Myspace poem about it? Two thousand and something years ago?"

"Two thousand, two hundred and fifty-nine years ago, and yes," he agrees, taking the book back before the binding loosens too much to hold the pages, and with any kind of luck, inhibit further inquiries on the subject matter. Closing it and smoothing the cover, he sees Dean's grin widen, pink lips still wet from his last drink of beer. "What?"

"Where'd you get it?"

"Oh. It was part of a collection of books that Bobby acquired." Dean raises his eyebrows in a silent request for more information, and sighing, he gives up. "I originally vetted the contents and identified it as a work of fiction, not a particularly convoluted ritual to summon Tawaret, if the prevalence of hippopotamuses in the narrative is any indication."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I have a few different headcanons about "Journey To--," all of which are purely speculative and sometimes even _wildly inaccurate_ given what we're told about the text in Map of the World.
> 
> Headcanon time!
> 
> 1\. Bobby says he "found" the book, but in fact, he had a subscription to the most awkwardly (but sincerely named) university periodical, the **Journal of Ancient Antiquities**.  
>  **Journal of Ancient Antiquities** is a fairly low-circulation work. In fact, most scholars won't touch it with a ten-foot pole. The editors love to publish very obscure, often very bad, examples of ancient texts that have been salvaged through various magical and non-magical means. Because it's a periodical that accepts the occult at face value, the journal really only has enthusiastic subscribers among fringey groups and hunters. Bobby has an incredibly soft spot for Greek and Roman hunter poems that the journal occasionally publishes. Unfortunately, the scholarly standards for the journal are a bit low, and they allow some truly regrettable errors to occur (more on that in a minute).
> 
> 2\. The author uses hieratic egyptian during sexually charged encounters to lend his text a fake "religious" air. Like how I might quote the King James Bible to make myself sound "appropriately" solemn when I'm thinking about writing Song of Songs smut.
> 
>  **Demotic versus Hieratic Egyptian**. We're told in the text that the poem is written in Demotic Egyptian, which is the script that supercedes Hieratic during the Greco-Roman period. Hieratic is more akin to a transitional alphabet between pure hieroglyphics and the super-abstracted forms of demotic. During the time-period that Cas pegs the poem haven been written, Demotic is the best guess for what someone writing a secular work in Egyptian would use. But I decided somewhere along the way (probably when we started getting really charged hippo encounters in the text), that our "youth" / author would probably be pretentious enough to use Hieratic. Using Demotic Egyptian is already _pretty goddamn pretentious_ , since it's cultural appropriation like wow. But using _Hieratic_ when it was essentially only a priestly language when it was composed for his intensely erotic hippo adventures? Yeah, that kind of sounds like something a sexually frustrated pretentious-as-hell horny-ass Grecian youth would do, and then pat himself on the back. I don't think he would be conversant enough with it to write his entire poem with it. So the majority of it is still in Demotic.
> 
> And even better, using the priestly class language when Cas himself had priest vessels? Just icing on the Cas-hulks-out-cake.
> 
> 3\. The text of "Journey" has been matched up with a few incorrect art pieces from an older poem by mistake thanks to a particularly incautious editor.  
>  **Philapator Dio** (aka "Father-Loving God"). A Roman farce written contemporaneous to Cleopatra's marriage to Marc Antony, this poem came complete with art and sketches made by priests, court artisans and Roman dignitaries from the ceremony. Many of these sketches were done in Roman style, but it also included Egyptian motifs. Of note, a piece called "the divine undivided," which caught the look of pure disgust on one of the priestly musicians. Keeping with the theme of farce, the grumpy musician endures a comedy of errors in Philapator Dio* as he attempts to beg audience with Cleopatra.
> 
> The editor was so taken with this image (given that it was one of the finest examples of Ancient Egyptian "bitch-face" he had ever encountered) that he included it with the text of "Journey." Congratulating himself for this clever insertion, the editor rightly concluded that no man alive would be the wiser to his liberties. Long story short: Cas suffers a bit of shock when he flips past this manuscript page. _This certainly wasn't in the original._ And the editor was and is, still, _technically_ correct.
> 
> *Given that Cas has a hatred for all things Marc Antony, odds are he has never read Philapator Dio, nor does he know that he starred in a very popular ancient-world series that was the delight of thousands.
> 
> 4\. Cas doesn't write in the Journey manuscript. Not that he's not adverse to it. In fact, if anything deserves his contempt, it's this poem. But Cas missed out on the whole "marginalia" craze of the 12th and 13th centuries CE, and he also missed out on its extreme counter-reaction (never mark in books EVER) in the Victorian/Early 20th century. Dean however has no such qualms, and Cas is more than willing to engage him in a (textual) conversation. However, as time passes, Cas' urge to just _write_ in Journey increases and increases. He may or may not have reached critical mass when he was attempting to translate the word that didn't mean "hug".


	3. A Wild Hippo Appears, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part two of four of hippo-porn fanart. I'm working up to the drawing of suggestive hippos, so bear with the slow roll. In this scene, a wild hippo appears to our youth for the first time!

  
[](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tkodami/30597386/14363/14363_original.jpg)   
[](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tkodami/30597386/14700/14700_original.jpg)   
[](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tkodami/30597386/14978/14978_original.jpg)   
[](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tkodami/30597386/15145/15145_original.jpg)   
[ ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tkodami/30597386/15484/15484_original.jpg)  


Dean makes a mental note to eventually read it for himself, when even the idea of reading doesn't make him want to die. "Better or worse than the hippo porn?"

"It's called 'journey to the…'--"

"He fucking hippos yet?" he asks curiously, surprised to realize he misses Cas's semi-regular updates on hippofucker's progress down the Nile, where apparently everyone is both drop dead gorgeous and offers sexual favors, and every hippo encounter is rife with a growing sense of uncomfortable sexual tension. He gets why Cas was getting nervous; that's a lot of weirdly charged hippo encounters for one person.

 

[](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/tkodami/30597386/15825/15825_original.jpg)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene dramatized on this part of the scroll is the epic poem's narrator encountering a hippo on the Nile in his pimpin' river barque, with Hathor over his shoulder looking to give him the Egyptian equivalent of a high-five.
> 
> Whereas the previous _Journey_ art was of the edition that Cas had obtained from Bobby before heading to Camp Chitaqua, this is the honest-to-God papyrus version that Cas had originally read when he was in Egypt. Since we know that Cas had priest vessels around the time of Cleopatra's elevation to pharaoh, and the epic was composed sometime in the 250-200 BC range, it stands to reason Cas would probably have encountered it in Egypt first. I assume a copy of it was kept in Egyptian and Roman libraries, because of course the family of a rich youth would get copies made  & donated to the local libraries. And they probably would have kept it because it was a _laugh riot_ , once you get past all of those uncomfortable hippo scenes.
> 
> The writing accompanying this scene is Demotic, with some traditional-style hieroglyphics (usually reserved for super-important paintings, or monument carving. This youth really has a bit of an appropriation problem.) The style of the art in the papyrus is done to mimic scribal line illustrations. 
> 
> I really love art puns, so I couldn't help but stick a few of Egyptian puns into this picture. Here, for references' sake, are the puns:  
> 1) **Hathor is giving a blessing (Egyptian high-five) to the far right of the image.** This is not a particularly subtle pun. Hathor is the goddess of childbearing, love, and joy. She specifically represents the principles of the feminine (love, sex, procreation), and she is REALLY EXCITED to see the youth meeting up with the hippo. The important question is, she there for the youth or the hippo? God, I don't even want to know.
> 
> 2) **The youth in a billowing skirt.** Skirts or shendyt were typical apparel for men of all classes, from laborers to pharaohs. But by the time this poem was written, shendyt were worn short. They certainly weren't long  & billow-y. Essentially I added a "skirt blows up in the wind during the youth's first meeting with the hippo and probably flashes the hippo his junk." I'm so, so sorry.
> 
> 3) **The symbol of love/union unites the two cartouches.** The cartouche is the oval enclosure around a name of royal significance, usually only used for Pharaohs and their queens/consorts. (Our young youth here probably sees himself as having an epic love story that stretches across time, so: cartouches for him and the hippo he's meeting.) The symbol that ajoins the cartouche and hangs down is the Egyptian symbol for love/union. Though this is speculation on my part, its shape is reminescent of a popular abortifacient that was harvested to extinction during the Roman period (because people really _really_ liked having sex!) And, let's move on to the next one. 
> 
> 4) **The symbol for protection stands over the hippo emerging from the river.** I don't even want to dwell on why I thought this was a good idea. 
> 
> 5) **The hippo has an (incomplete) wedjat.** The Wedjat or the Eye of Horus is another Egyptian symbol of protection. This symbol is closely linked with Hathor, and it's also closely linked with sea travel. It was customary for sailors to paint it on boats to ensure safe travels. A Grecian author might not get that distinction (PUT IT ON THE BOAT SO YOU DON'T SINK, NOT ON THE HIPPO WHICH IS EYEING YOUR BOAT LIKE A PIECE OF MEAT), so I have the symbol appearing on the hippo rather than on the boat. Plus it's incomplete, because if there's one thing this image needed more, it needed stylistic inconsistencies. Hah ha ha, groan.


	4. A Very Hippo Chapter, Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several pieces of _Journey_ fanart that never made it to publication. Apparently suggestive hippos are too much for the poor editor hearts at the _Journal of Ancient Antiquities_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> People clamored for art from the quasi-Epic "Journey To---". This is part three of four of hippo-porn fanart. In this part, I finally take the plunge: trying my hand at drawing suggestive hippos (& with a bonus flight of fancy into retro-futurism)!

Hippo porn, in the style of Victorian photogravure plates  


  


  


  


Hippo porn line-rendering, as found in the collection of Wilbour's papers 

  


Sketches

  


  


"Good, made it just in time," Vera says as she comes in the room, checking over Dean over with laudable speed before nudging him over with a hip and sitting down. Cas looks between them. "Well?"

Opening the spiral, Cas opens it to where they left off yesterday. "My translations from this point are rather questionable." It's said more in hope than any actual doubt of the accuracy of the translation, which after the last installment Dean understands.

"No problem," Dean assures him, settling his pillows again as Vera leans against his upraised knees hopefully. "We're at how the bare curves of the hippos' backs--how did he say it?--'emerged slick and gleaming from the recesses of the swamp'."

Vera frowns at him. "Wait, there were 'shadowy crevices' in there somewhere."

"'From the murky depths they emerged slick and gleaming in the spill of moonlight, deepening shadows like crevices between each mound of delicately rounded flesh, as if arching into a willing hand.'" Cas stops, closing his eyes with a shudder that Dean and Vera share. "It's a metaphor."

"Still hoping for Tawaret?" It's so not a metaphor.

Cas gives him a flat look. "You have no idea how much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say about these sketches? One: there will never be enough ways for me to say, "I don't know what I was thinking." But for sure this time _I don't know what I was thinking_. I've imagined what hippo porn might look like to a 19th century Egyptian Revival artist (possibly British, possibly American--both countries loved and hated Egypt SO. MUCH.) The un-rendered sketch was imagining what suggestive hippos might look like if done in a retro-futurist style. [ The only thing you need to know about retro-futurism is: does it look like it's from the 80s? does it belong on a T-shirt or album cover? then it's probably retro-futurist.] 
> 
> The most important thing to know about Egyptian Revival is that for a while, people were a bit nutty for Egyptian-styled furniture, art, ornament, architecture--you name it, there was a market for it. The second most important thing to know about Egyptian Revival is that pretty much _just as soon as it was a thing_ , style/taste commentators hated it. They thought it gaudy and awful. 
> 
> Headcannons!
> 
> 1) Rather than be relegated to the dust-bins of history, as many older pieces of unpopular literature are (there are scads (scads!) of Arthuriana that we do our best to forget exist), _Journey_ experienced a brief--though disastrous--heyday in Victorian London during the height of Egyptian Revival. Right around the time that Highgate Cemetery opened its Valley-of-the-Kings inspired doors in 1839, _Journey_ was published in a leading Victorian Periodical, along with a very rough translation of the demotic sections of the poem. Was _Journey_ ever brought forth from its page into, perhaps, say a stage production? I'D LIKE TO THINK SO YES. 
> 
> 2) Some poor bastard found the temptation of erotic hippopotamus art (ITS A METAPHOR / NO IT IS NOT A METAPHOR) too tempting to resist. He had photogravure plates made of the centerpiece "artwork" of _Journey_ , the hippo laid bare before the youth's eyes. These plates were shared amongst the more refined fans of _Journey_ and hippo-porn connoisseurs more generally. This all happened before people sobered the fuck up, and realized that they were hording hippo pornography; which is to say, Egyptomania became that uncomfortable thing your parents  & grandparents did. By the beginning of the 20h century, much of _Journey_ 's reputation had faded to obscure references in old periodicals and yellowing prints found in antiquarian hordes.
> 
> 3) Somehow these plates made their way to noted Egyptologist and beard enthusiast, Charles Edwin Wilbour. When his papers were turned over to the Brooklyn Museum (50 years after his death; the hotel he died in was really snotty about returning Wilbour's shit) these photographic prints & illustrations were found amongst his things. After years of sorting through his catalog, _Journey_ was "rediscovered" by scholars interested in _just what the hell everyone was thinking_ , a burgeoning field of study in many disciplines.
> 
> 4) Before the end of the world, some poor curator was responsible for cataloging and maintaining Wilbour's papers, including his not-small collection of hippo porn memorabilia. As a job. That paid money. 
> 
> 5) I would not mind having that job.
> 
> Further note: There will be _one last hippo porn fanart_ , which will feature ahem, events, from the youth's perspective. Finally. _Finally_. After which, I will likely turn my attention to other parts of _Agincourt_. Because sometimes (maybe even hours and hours after carefully rendering the folds of tender hippo skin in two different revival styles) you just need to have the art equivalent of a colonic.


	5. Path of Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A view of the church from above. Companion piece to "Cas In The Church."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've bumped the rating up on the work to "Mature," because starting with this piece, I've gone into the darker places that _A Thousand Lights In Space_ has and thought a bump would be appropriate (especially as I am not using many tags on the work).

Path of Angels ||| Castiel witnesses the return of a goddess in the carnage of the church. _A Thousand Lights In Space_ , Chapter 9

Castiel calls up the memory of the completed circle in Ichabod, tracing the design over the burn line. Almost effortlessly, a polished wooden floor stretches out below his feet as pews are ripped up and tossed aside to make more space, carpet stripped away by eager hands. Blurred, indistinct figures work together to draw the circle with slow, patient strokes, the individual sigils flowing from the stark white paint--paint, not chalk, another difference from what happened in Ichabod--this time starting at the north--the direction of the altar--and moving counterclockwise to the east, the symbols entered confidently with experienced hands. Until they reach the east--

[....]

Hours--days--a week, perhaps: it doesn't matter. It felt like forever.

Finally, a single vision dominates, clear and hard, edged with rage and fear so strong it burned away physical pain; each half-conscious child (they didn't have time to hurt them, too. It took days to find them, she didn't hide them well enough, her fault, she should have learned more before she….) was carried inside the circle and placed within the inner circle before the last quarter--the closing sequence--was drawn, in chalk this time, because--

Mouth dry, he looks at the wall above the altar. "--once closed, it was done. That only brought it into existence; once it existed, it didn't matter if the lines were erased. I was too late."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY. ANOTHER PIECE OF AGINCOURT FANART. It should not have taken me so long to revisit my favorite series, but I am a fairly slow artist. This one is dedicated especially to sep (aren't they all?) so that she can think about cheerier things than her development team--namely, human sacrifice.
> 
> This piece is the promised revisit of the Church, on the heels of its importance to _A Thousand Lights In Space_. This time, I've better captured the shattered state of the pews; the pure destruction in the wake of a human sacrifice; the circle used for the human sacrifice (3/4ths painted, 1/4 chalk for the final closure). Once again, I've shied away from depicting actual violence, opting for moodiness and suggestion over visceral art. Maybe that's because I probably couldn't stand to draw that much blood. 
> 
> There isn't a lot of visual metaphor in this image. But things to note:
> 
> the RAINBOW refracting from the light of the Goddess, as it's fractioned and spread by the binding circle for the human sacrifice. I love the idea of magic being fairly subtle; that the presence of a magical force (in this case a circle that won't restrain, but rather just exist), will exist as a optical refractory point. Breaking up all that passes through it to its constituent parts. How else will human lives (souls) be turned into power? (I won't lie, I imagine that the demon who is doing this--my money's on Crowley--will eat the souls pac-man style.)
> 
> I know the summoning circle was supposed to be entirely white, but sometimes I'm just a bit recalcitrant about colors. The spray-painted part appears to be a corrupted and seeping brown, whereas the chalk final quarter of the circle is white. 
> 
> Lots of wood texture. Seriously, I've been painting wood textures at 4am for days straight and it's like, I still want to draw more. More wood textures. Wood for everyone!!
> 
> This is starting to feel a little inappropriate, so I'll go now with the promise of new fanart in the near future; for as long as this hiatus lasts, the thirstier I get for _Agincourt_.


	6. Human Skills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Dean sitting on a roof. There's not a lot going on, but then again--this is kind of their whole damn world.

Human Skills ||| Inspired by Dean and Cas drinking beers on top of their cabin in _Map of the World_ , Chapter 7

The sound of something scraping against the wood jerks his attention back to the once-silent night. This late, most of the camp is either sleeping or engaged in activities in their cabin that tend to demand their entire attention, and in any case, none of them would have any reason to come up here. Frowning, he focuses on the fragile quiet, now aware of the not-quite random, almost furtive scrapes and nearly inaudible grunts. After a particularly jarring snap of wood, an unmistakable voice drifts toward him, the words muffled but considering their source, he can easily guess what's being said. The only question is if it's him or the cabin that is being more viciously maligned.

Standing up, he follows the increasingly frequent sounds across the length of the roof, peering over the edge to see Dean clinging to rotting slats apparently by nothing more than his fingernails and sheer force of will. As if aware of being observed, Dean cuts off a particularly convoluted description of his antecedents, jerking his head up to stare at Castiel accusingly from behind narrowed eyes, silently condemning him for making his life so difficult that despite the fact this is a terrible, terrible idea, he's doing it anyway.

Bewilderment, Castiel thinks: that's another word I didn't know before I met you. At least, not this often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I present to you an illustration done for _Map of the World_ , a novel you may have recently read. The style of this piece originally was meant to be a Victorian etched plate illustration, but I had neither the time, patience, nor commitment to draw all of those squiggly little lines. I also became too enchanted with Shin Hanga, the style of Japanese woodblock printing during the late 19th, early 20th centuries. 
> 
> Dean and Cas are thus transported to an almost ethereal floating world of Chitaqua on the rooftop. Themes of natural regeneration abound (how about those little heart-shaped ivy leaves inching up the side of the roof towards Dean & Cas), and they seem to glow with a peaceful inner light which can be found almost at no time during _Map of the World_ except for when someone is bleeding. 
> 
> Also, please welcome yourself to what I like to call Dean's Reserve Where's Waldo sweater. Imagine now, a world where Dean Winchester wears only prints and stripes, no plaid. I swear to you such a world must exist; and in the still beauty of the Japanese print, even that world can breathe anew... It should also be known that I laughed and laughed and laughed when I realized I had put Dean & Cas into Christmas colors. This may or may not be the DtA equivalent of Ugly Christmas Sweaters. You tell me.
> 
> Note: I've changed this over from Gen to M/M and added a Dean/Cas tag to the work, as from here on out, the artwork is likely to get more shippy. I will likely make a new work if I start to veer from feels into NSFW territory. I mean, more NSFW than sexy hippos. *rubs face* There ARE more hippos coming, though. If you didn't already guess.


End file.
